Viennese composer.

Career Summary

Weigl studied piano with Anton Door and music theory with Robert Fuchs at the Vienna Conservatory, later composition with Zemlinsky, and musicology with Guido Adler at Vienna University, receiving a PhD in 1903 on "The Life of E. A. Förster"). He was a solo repetiteur under Gustav Mahler at the Vienna Hofoper 1904-06, taught at the Neues Wiener Konservatorium from 1918, and taught music theory at Vienna University from 1930.

In 1938, he emigrated to New York, where he taught music theory and composition, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1943. His output as a composer was very large, and his music was praised by Richard Strauss, Schoenberg, Furtwängler, Casals, and Bruno Walter. His wife was Vally (Valerie) Weigl [née Pick].

Weigl and Schenker

Schenker seems to have encountered Weigl for the first time on December 12, 1913, in the Archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (OJ 1/13, p. 486). The two men were in contact again in 1916, and during the summer vacations of 1922 and 1923, when Weigl expressed an interest in the concept of the Urlinie. Schenker was present at the performance of a string quartet of Weigl's by the Rosé Quartet in 1927, and commented unfavorably in his diary, as he did on two other works in 1929 and 1930, describing his D-minor Symphony as "truly childish!"

Correspondence with Schenker

The correspondence between Karl and Vally Weigl and Schenker survives as OJ 5/44 (1929-34: 4 items) and 15/11 (1929-34: 11 items), also OC 44/7, 10, 11, A/282 (1929-34), and there is at least one item in the Weigl Collection at the Library of Congress, Washington.

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